Metal: album review – Judas Priest ‘Redeemer of Souls’

After being so impressed with Judas Priest on their recent UK tour, it wasn’t long afterwards that I found myself putting their most recent studio album, 2014’s Redeemer of Souls, on my Christmas present list.

When the album was being launched guitarist, Glenn Tipton assured that fans that they need not expect something wildly experimental. “Sometimes in the past we may have come under fire for being too adventurous musically…so we have listened,” he claimed. “From start to finish, ‘Redeemer of Souls’ is 18 songs of pure classic Priest metal.” Well, I have only got the bog-standard 13 track version rather than the deluxe version, but other than that I’m not going to argue.

The album opens in strong form with Dragonaut which pretty much contains everything you want from a classic metal album, crunching guitars, tuneful melodic solos, thunderous vocals and an accessible, well-written tune you can sing along to. Other memorable, stand-out tracks on the album include the title track, Redeemer of Souls, as well as Down In Flames and Metalizer. But if truth be told there’s not a weak track on the album. This is the first album with new guitarist, Ritchie Faulkner, who replaced founder member KK Downing. But as was also evident on their recent tour he certainly “gets” the Judas Priest sound.

In spite of having a reputation of purveyors of fearsome uncompromising metal, however, Judas Priest have also been able to pull the odd nicely-judged hard-rock ballad out of the hat. Beginning Of The End, the last track on the album, does the job beautifully.

After so much confusion around the band’s future only a few years ago, Redeemer Of Souls is a real return to form for Judas Priest. The line-up refreshed. The band rejuvinated. And with a clear sense of musical direction apparent from the outset. This is an album that stands up well against the band’s classics of the late 70s and early 80s.